First about the two sports talk jocks in Washington D.C. that went on ESPN Radio the other night and mocked Gabrielle Ludwig, the 50-year-old transsexual basketball player from Fremont who plays for Santa Clara’s Mission College women’s basketball team. (Her backstory, for those unfamiliar, here.) They’ve been suspended for “intolerance and insensitivity.”
Matthias Gafni at the Mercury News says that after the verbal attack on her, Ludwig told a sports website that she was considering quitting the team, but that her coach and teammates won’t let her. The school “has hired extra security and provided her a special parking lot to keep her safe during games and practice,” Gafni says.
Here’s what Ludwig told Outsports.com:
"These two people in Washington DC just tore my life apart, and they don't even know me. They did it in respect to how I look, how I'm built, the tattoos on my body. They took great pride in humiliating me in the national public. I don't know if I'm supposed to cry or scream or beat them up. It's affecting my sleep, it's affecting my confidence."
But there’s also this silver lining: After a game over the weekend, the competing Lassen College women’s team invited Ludwig into their locker room, took pictures with her and posted them to their Facebook page with a note that—when she saw it—brought her to tears: “This is one of the nicest players we’ve ever played and you can’t judge a book by its cover.”
Image: USA Today
